Short Circuit
by OughtaKnowBetter
Summary: Adam is marked for death, and Brennan's out of control. Set in season two. Final installment has arrived, and the story is complete!
1. Default Chapter

Set in Season Two

Disclaimer: all theirs, nothing mine. As usual.

Short Circuit

By OughtaKnowBetter

"Stop fussing over me," Adam grumbled. "I can tie my own tie. And this bullet-proof vest feels hot and heavy. I don't need it," he finished up, hope floating into his voice.

"Yes, you do," Shalimar contradicted in no uncertain terms. She was dropping him off center stage, and wasn't ready to leave her mentor to his own devices just yet. The stage-hands around them were setting the spotlights so as to illuminate the speaker and not wash out the screen behind that would hold the slides that Adam had prepared weeks earlier. The moderator had already greeted Adam, and was busy fixing his own tie in preparation for the lecture. "_And_ you need help with your tie. You tie it crookedly. How can such a brilliant man be so inept at dressing himself?"

"I am not inept. It's this vest. It's hot and bulky and uncomfortable. I'm taking it off."

"Not a chance, Adam." Jesse's voice drifted into their ears through their comm. link. The molecular was high in the control booth looking down over the auditorium which was slowly beginning to fill up with suited scientists. "You got a bona fide death threat from a certified whack job. The letter arrived in the mail less than a week ago, and it's genuine, Adam. We're not just paranoid; there really is someone out to get you. And since you'll make a very inviting target standing behind the podium droning on about genetic research—"

"I don't drone."

Jesse ignored the interruption. "—you have just won yourself a brand new shiny vest lined with titanium." He switched channels. "Emma? You there?"

"Right here," Emma confirmed. The empath was mingling, sending out feelers, testing the psychic waters and looking for evidence of the threat that they all knew was somewhere in this building. People were ambling in, searching for a better seat from which to hear the famed Dr. Adam Kane speak, looking for colleagues that they saw only at these sort of events. Several wore suits, others couldn't be bothered and opted for jeans and a white coat stained with biological residue from a lab. Here and there the youngish ones eyed Emma appreciatively, but the girl wasn't interested. She was there on business. "So far everyone's clean."

Mutant X business.

"So either our sniper is not yet in the building or he's too far away for Emma to sense." Brennan was off to the side, waiting in the wings of the stage. He had adopted a different look today, dressed in a suit to better blend in with the crowd of egg-heads. But the stylish side of him had to come out somewhere: a pair of shades. Brennan came across as exactly what he was: a bodyguard. He rubbed his fingers together, and little arcs of electricity snapped across the short distance.

Shalimar glanced at him sourly. "Tone it down, Sparky. You want people to notice?"

"Sorry." The snapping stopped, but Brennan shifted his feet irritably, searching the crowd with eyes hidden behind the Ray-bans. The curtains edged toward him, potent with static electricity.

"You'd better get going," Adam suggested pointedly to Shalimar. Brennan wasn't the only one on edge. "It's about to begin. You should be in the audience with Emma."

"Trying to get rid of me?"

"As a matter of fact, yes." Adam adjusted the tie, trying to give his neck a little more room. "I need to look over my notes."

Shalimar gave him a quick peck on the cheek, working hard to cover how nervous she felt. "Going." She paused. "Be careful, Adam. We can't afford to lose you."

"You're not going to lose me," Adam returned irritably. "I'm wearing a vest, we have Jesse with a bird's eye view, Emma scanning, you hunting and Brennan over there about as inconspicuous as a zebra in an art museum." He looked at the elemental with annoyance. "And stop snapping your fingers. You'll blow out the spotlights."

"Sorry." The little arcs of electricity which had started themselves up again without Brennan noticing, stopped. Brennan took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. What did he have to be nervous about? It was Adam who was the sniper's target. As well as the man about to give a speech to a couple thousand critical scientists eager for the opportunity to challenge Adam's theories and proposals. Shalimar drifted away, not without a backward glance, to mingle with the crowd and hunt for signs that someone wasn't the innocent scientist that he appeared to be.

Adam turned off his comm. link. The background chatter would only distract him, and he could trust his team to look out for him. He half-doubted that there was any real threat; the evidence was shaky, and it could have been a person too angry to be discreet who was now regretting their actions. A simple letter didn't necessarily mean anything. He pulled out the sheaf of papers that he'd written his notes on and picked up the remote for the presentation slides he'd brought. Time to get to work. He put all thoughts of danger aside.

Brennan looked around anxiously, scanning the audience and watching Adam at the same time. He felt the most vulnerable here, standing in the wings behind the heavy curtains, wanting to be down among the sheep and looking for someone with malice in their heart. Instead he was with Adam, ready to intervene in whatever way necessary. "Jesse?"

"Right here, bro." The molecular was still up in the video booth with the technicians, monitoring the cameras that he had installed just yesterday when the threat had come in. "No matches yet. If this guy is here, he's either hiding his mutant DNA or he came in through the drain pipes."

"Now that's a mutation I'd like to see," Shalimar murmured back, holding her ring to her face to speak into the device. "But that's not what this guy can do. Emma?"

"He's here." The telempath was definite. "He just arrived. I don't know where, but he's here. And he's thinking about Adam." Then puzzlement: "Guys, I think our sniper knows Adam personally. Adam will be able to recognize him." A long and puzzled pause. "They were friends once."

"Mason Eckhart knows Adam personally," Jesse replied, "and that doesn't make _him_ any friendlier. Got that, everyone?" Jesse's voice took on a more concerned tone. "We have a target, and it's someone that Adam knows personally. Let's take this guy out before Adam finishes his lecture and people come to him to shake his hand. That will be the danger time, with someone coming up to greet him and shove a gun in his face. Emma, can you move around, maybe narrow down his location?"

"Trying," she said. They could hear her concentration through the comm. link. "Try looking up high," she suggested. "I'm getting a sense of looking down on Adam. Jesse, I don't think he's going to wait for a meet and greet session."

"Redirecting the cameras," Jesse responded promptly. "Shal, you move up to the upper levels of the auditorium. Brennan, keep sharp. Let me know if you see anything."

The welcoming applause died away, and Adam stepped to the podium. The lights over the audience dimmed, and the first slide brightened the stage behind him.

"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen," he said. "I'd like to start with a brief history of how science has been looking at the issue of genetic manipulation. Mankind has been altering the DNA of animals for millennium. One only has to look at the histories of domesticated animals for the evidence…"

Jesse tuned the man out; he'd heard this speech three times before, helping Adam to refine the wording back at Sanctuary over the last week. He aimed his vid-cams upward, trusting Emma's intuition as to where the sniper would be. One camera he left to track the empath. Emma was quickly making her way through the crowd still trying to find seats, blindly seeking out the welling emotion from the sniper.

"Jesse," she said, "He's getting tense. I think he's getting close to firing."

"Hear that, Shal, Bren?"

"Got it." Both of the other mutants were just as anxious. Electricity crackled on Brennan's comm. link, interfering with the reception.

"Can you locate him, Emma?" Jesse swung the cameras around. Time was getting short. The sniper wouldn't give them much more.

"Try all the way to the left," she suggested. And wished heartily that her own gift had some locational bent to it. It was fine to know that the sniper was here, but 'here' was too nebulous by half a mile under the circumstances. _You can do this, girl. _She glanced nervously at Adam, who was still lecturing at the podium. Then she peered back over the crowd. The scientists were all hanging on every word, most jotting down notes and a couple frantically trying to sketch in a graph that Adam was presenting. She shook her head wryly. All the notes they needed were on the handouts at the front of the auditorium, just below the podium. _Scientists!_

Jesse obediently maneuvered two of the cameras toward the left side of the auditorium balcony, searching for anything that might look like a spot for a sniper to hide himself in. Nothing. Everything was dark, the focus of the room on the slides on the screen at the back of the stage and the man discussing the evidence in front of the scene. The cameras slowly dollied across the upper area, the seats empty with the crowd eschewing these chairs in favors of the closer ones below.

He almost missed it—a small swaying of the heavy curtain at the side of the balcony. Jesse halted the progression of one camera and zoomed in for a closer look. Light glinted on a piece of dark metal.

"Got him!" Jesse said, alarmed. "Shalimar, Emma, balcony left! He's ready to fire! Brennan!"

A spurt of red flame erupted from the dark metal gun barrel. Brennan flung himself across the stage to take Adam down to the floor in the middle of discussing the upgrades to Mendelian evolutionary theory. A hole sprouted in the wood podium, sending splinters into the crowd with a sharp retort.

There was silence while the crowd of scientists evaluated the significance of what had just occurred: a small round hole in the podium, a dark-suited bodyguard who had just covered the guest speaker with his own body, and a noise strangely reminiscent of a gunshot.

The audience scattered.

Shalimar abandoned all pretense of being a normal human. Despite being trained observers, not one of the fleeing scientists noted the tiny blonde woman leaping up to the twenty-foot high balcony with a single jump, clutching onto the railing and clambering over. She darted to the curtains where the shooter had been, Jesse's cameras tracking her every move. Shalimar tore down the curtain with a single yank.

Empty.

"He's gone." Emma arrived as the curtain fell around Shalimar's ankles. "I felt him leave. He's angry at missing Adam. He considers himself a good shot."

"He didn't miss!" Brennan's voice came sharp and scared over the comm. link. "Jesse, call for an ambulance!"

Terror struck at them all. Shalimar took the short cut to the stage, turning a flip in mid air from the balcony to land on her feet close to the pair. Emma and Jesse were forced to use the stairs but didn't take much longer.

Adam was on the floor of the stage, gasping for breath, lips turning blue as he tried to make words come out. His hands plucked feebly at his chest. Jesse wrenched open the bullet-proof vest, ripping the white buttoned shirt with it.

"There's no blood," Shalimar discovered, alarmed. "Where was he hit?"

"He wasn't shot." Emma plucked the words out of Adam's mind. She looked up at the others, naked fear on her face. "It's his heart!"

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"Translate," Brennan insisted, frightened and trying to cover his fear with anger. This day had been too long and filled with too much excitement. Having it end up in the waiting room of the Intensive Care Unit was not what any of them had planned for when waking up this morning. It should have been a post-lecture victory celebration. "Speak plain English, doc. What's wrong with him?"

The doctor in the white coat stuck her hands into the voluminous pockets, fingering her stethoscope just to have something to do with her fingers. "Frankly, Mr. Mulwray, we don't know yet. We're still running tests."

"You've been running tests for six hours," Brennan reminded her. "How many more tests are you going to run?"

"At least twenty four hours worth," was the unapologetic reply. "This is not a straight-forward situation where I can point a finger at a diagnosis and say, 'that's the one.' When Dr. Kane was brought in, his heartbeat was extremely erratic. Now he's in a normal sinus rhythm; no sign of the ectopy that caused his distress. He's fine at the moment but I'd like to find out what happened and why. Hearts don't usually go in and out of irregular rhythms without explanation. I want a bit more reassurance that this isn't going to happen again, and right now I don't have that reassurance." The doctor glanced through the window into the patient room beyond. Shalimar was perched on a stool beside the hospital bed, clutching onto Adam's hand as though he would slip away if she didn't hang onto him.

Adam himself looked as white as the sheets that he lay upon, dark circles under his eyes a testament to his recent ordeal. More than one slender plastic tube was threaded through beeping machines, feeding medicines directly into the blood to act upon his heart. More wires kept him hooked to monitors, a small green light moving in a regular pattern across the screen. Another tube pushed oxygen at him. Brennan didn't see how the man could sleep through the racket.

"How can it be his heart?" Emma asked. "Isn't he too young? He's very athletic."

The doctor nodded. "You can never tell. There may be some inborn error in metabolism, something he was born with. Does he have a family history of heart attacks?"

The three looked helplessly at each other. As much as Adam knew about them, they knew little about their mentor's past.

Jesse was no less upset than Brennan, but more contained. "How long before we can get him out of here, doc? This is not a man who takes kindly to staying in bed."

The doctor grinned. "Then I'll be counting on you four to make him. He's had a close call. Twenty-four hours here with me, and, assuming I don't find anything I don't like, he can turn into your problem."

Emma bit her lip. "I'll hold you to that." She looked at the others, waiting until the doctor had walked away to continue. She spoke in a low voice. "What about the sniper? How can we protect Adam here?"

"One of us will be at his bedside at all times," Brennan promised grimly. Small sparks snapped nervously at his fingertips, and he crushed the electrons into silence. "Shalimar first, then Jesse, then me. Emma, I want you further away, scanning. Any hint of the sniper, you let us know."

"He's somewhere in this hospital, possibly in this downstairs waiting room." Emma scanned the waiting room on the first floor, hunting with both her eyes and her mind. The place was airy and open, adjacent to the front entrance to the hospital. "I can feel him. He's here. He's thinking about how to get to Adam and then make his escape."

Brennan looked around, Jesse following his lead. The room was crowded with people waiting for news of their loved ones: a group of gypsies in one corner casting dour looks at everyone else, a mother trying to keep two young children under control. More were elderly, barely able to totter about themselves with canes and walkers. All looked haggard with worry.

"Process of elimination," Jesse murmured just loud enough for the others to hear. "Subtract everyone over the age of seventy. The person who escaped from the balcony had to be pretty agile to get away faster than Shalimar could follow. Likewise, weed out the kids. I've yet to see a four year old write a death threat."

"That still leaves at least two dozen suspects." Brennan tried to memorize what each and every one left looked like. Mutants had a certain look about them, and this one should be no exception. The mutation here was a feral, like Shalimar. Shalimar had searched the sniper's hiding place thoroughly for clues. But while Shalimar took on the aspects of a feline, this one had been intermixed with avian.

Jesse had delved into the computer files when Adam had been less than forthcoming after the threatening letter, finally discovering a name after finding out that the sniper was an acquaintance of Adam's. Carlos Del Castillo, like the rest of the New Mutants, had been 'helped' as a child when he had developed a fatal illness. He was one of the earliest children to come to Genomex, and Adam had been instrumental in curing him, infusing Carlos' DNA with avian DNA from the peregrine falcon. It had worked; Del Castillo lived.

On the face of it, Del Castillo had been fortunate. His mutation gave him a superior hearing and a keen eyesight; like the peregrine falcon he could spot something as tiny as a mouse from a distance approaching a mile. And, like a bird, his bones were hollow making him far lighter than any human had a right to be.

All of this became extremely attractive to certain sub rosa military organizations. Del Castillo trained as a sniper, able to pick off targets at a distance limited only to the capabilities of his weapon. He became much in demand.

But there was a cost. His heart beat faster, which began a cascade of potential illnesses down the road. The risks, Adam had told Carlos back in their mutual Genomex days, were cardiovascular: heart attacks, stroke. A probable life span of not more than fifty. Which was a heck of a lot better than dying at age twelve, but now at thirty five Carlos was quite obviously not a happy feral. Hence the death threat.

All this Jesse had been able to pry out of Adam's database, worrying his way around the protections that Adam had applied, hacking his way in past the passwords as Adam lay in his hospital bed. The information was meager, but more than Adam had been willing to share. But the one thing that the team wanted, that they needed, wasn't there: a picture of Carlos del Castillo.

Emma cast around, looking not with her eyes but with her mind. She frowned. "He's not here."

"But you said he was."

"He's not any more." She tilted her head, then lifted it as if sniffing the air. "He's on the roof. I can feel the wind beating against him, helping him to fly."

Brennan scowled. "He turning into a bird man for real? Wings?"

Emma blinked, coming back to herself. "He's gone."

Brennan sighed. "Let's get back to Adam. I'll take Shalimar up to the roof. Maybe she can see something that we can't." His scowl deepened. "That doc better bust Adam out of here soon. I don't like having him where we can't see who's coming."

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"Any luck?" Emma plopped herself down on the stool next to Jesse's. They were all back at Sanctuary, having persuaded the doctor to release Adam before he up and walked out against medical advice. The trip had been a long one for Adam; he fell asleep on the way home, and was tucked into his own bed here in Sanctuary with closed eyes before he could object that he had projects to finish. And the others conspired to keep him there.

Jesse's fingers danced over the computer keyboard but slowed as he paid attention to the telempath sitting next to him. The banks of computers whirred at them comfortingly, promising to divulge the secrets of the universe if only someone would caress their keys.

Jesse arched his back, stretching. "Nope," he replied. "Don't know why, but Adam put some heavy locks on the information surrounding this Del Castillo character. There's nothing to indicate why Carlos is so angry at Adam."

"There's always the usual."

"Angry at Adam because he's going to die before his time?" Jesse shook his head. "That doesn't make sense. Adam gave him another twenty or thirty years. Del Castillo would have died before hitting puberty. There has to be something more."

"Why?" Emma wanted to know. "Ashlocke was the same way. He hated Adam."

"Ashlocke was crazy."

"And who's to say that Carlos isn't?" Then Emma checked herself. "Cancel that. I would know—I've touched his mind. He's not insane, just very very angry." She sighed. "No, there's a reason he wants Adam dead. Maybe if we find it, we'll be able to figure out how to stop him."

"Now that sounds good." Brennan ambled in to drop his backside onto another stool, peering at the computer screen. He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. "You have any luck at breaking the encryption?"

Jesse sighed. "No. You?"

Brennan shook his head. "I went back to the auditorium, but no luck. The guy wasn't there long enough to leave a mark. Even the guards at the front and back entrances couldn't remember him."

"Didn't help that you didn't have a picture to show them," Jesse added.

"Yeah." Angry little sparks erupted from Brennan's fingertips. The elemental absently brushed them away. The picture on the computer screen tilted.

"Hey," Jesse objected mildly. "Turn it off, Sparky. You'll blow out the monitor."

"Sorry."

But Jesse had leaned in for a closer look. He looked at the monitor, then at Brennan, then back at the screen. "Brennan, move your hand closer to the monitor."

"Huh?"

"Just do it, okay?"

"Okay." Brennan obeyed. The picture shifted once again toward Brennan as though pulled by a powerful magnet.

Jesse took a more active role. He took hold of Brennan's wrist, moving the elemental's hand back and forth in front of the screen. The picture responded to his actions, the screen-saver warping toward where ever the Brennan-magnet was. "Cool."

Brennan jerked his hand away. "Right. Is this going to happen every time I sit down in front of a computer?"

"Beats me, Sparky." Jesse shrugged. "Gotta ask the resident genetics expert. Wait! We can't!" He smacked his forehead dramatically. "He saw you coming at him and his heart stopped beating!"

Brennan grunted dourly. "Very funny, wise guy. Suppose you put those smarts to work and tell us why this Carlos character hates Adam so much." Little sparks jumped from his fingers to the keyboard. The monitor shorted out with a disappointing pop and a hiss.

Jesse jumped back. "Hey! What did you do? I needed that computer, Brennan."

"I didn't do anything." Brennan pulled back from the set up, moving the stool back in alarm. "It's like something went zap."

"Yeah, the monitor went zap," Jesse grouched. "Go work out or something if you're going to leak electricity all over the place. That was an expensive computer, bro, and you just blew a monitor and probably inside the box as well. Go," he pushed.

Emma too got up. "I'll relieve Shalimar," she offered. "Use her as a sparring partner, Brennan. She should take a break from sitting with Adam. Jesse's right, Brennan. You're too wound up. You need to work off the excess energy. It's coming off of you everywhere. It's even making my hair stand on end, like static electricity."

Brennan threw up his hands in surrender, rising from the stool. "I'm going. I'm going. Tell Shal to meet me in the dojo."

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Adam wandered into the computer lab where Jesse sat tinkering with the box, unscrewing the power regulator and hooking up various leads, checking the responses and growling under his breath. Adam eyed the molecular suspiciously. "What are you doing?"

"Fixing the damn computer that Brennan broke. He fried the power regulator. Ow." Jesse bumped his head pulling it out from under the countertop and took a second look. "What are you doing up? Aren't you supposed to be in bed?"

"I was bored." But Adam didn't look bored. He looked lost. Jesse couldn't remember ever seeing the man at loose ends, worn out with the mere effort of sliding into a bathrobe. It was more than a little scary for the molecular. Adam was the untouchable one, the man who was there to fix all of them, the all-powerful father figure. He wasn't supposed to get sick or be weak or get injured. He wasn't a New Mutant.

Adam tucked his hands into the over-sized pockets. "Can I help?"

"Nope." Jesse plucked the screwdriver off of the table before Adam could notice and reach for it. "You're supposed to be in bed for at least two days, Adam. Doctor's orders. Why aren't you there?"

"I couldn't." Adam looked away. "I couldn't sleep."

Jesse pulled away from the box he was working on. "We can get Emma to help. You wouldn't have to take any sleeping pills if you didn't want to. What's that stuff that the doctor prescribed for you?"

"No. No," Adam repeated hastily. "I've had enough of sleeping. It's time to get up and moving."

"It's time to sit down and relax," Jesse contradicted. "Adam, you heard the same things that we did. Two days of bed rest, then light work for a week. And you get to follow that with another check up. Adam, your heart almost stopped! You think we're going to take that lightly?"

"No." Adam grimaced. Then he smiled, a ghost of an expression flitting across his face. "I guess I could have picked a better time."

"Well, yeah, I'd have to agree with you there." Jesse hung his elbows across his knees, resting his arms and surveying his mentor. "Taking a swan dive in front of over a thousand of the best and brightest in the business is not the way to exit gracefully."

"What's the reaction in the community?"

Jesse grinned. "Half of 'em think you're dead from a sniper's bullet. The other half think you're dead from a heart attack. And the third half think it was all a plot to bring science out into the open so that more impressionable little children will take up science as their life's work."

"That's three halves, Jesse."

"What can I say? I grew up with the new math, need a calculator to count how many toes I have." Then Jesse fixed Adam with a stern eye. "At least sit down. If you won't go back to bed, then sit. Take a load off. You can watch me work, do the heavy supervising." But it didn't make the molecular feel any better when Adam accepted the advice without argument. Adam was always on the go, never quitting, never slowing down. It worried Jesse to see the older man so exhausted. Somehow it felt…wrong. He changed the subject to the other item on his mind. "So who is this sniper and why does he have it in for you?"

Adam gave a crooked little smile, leaning back against the seat. "You couldn't hack into my files?"

"Don't distract me. I'm damn good at hacking, Adam, and you know it."

Adam chuckled. "Yes, you are. But you won't get into that one. I've encrypted it behind six layers of protection."

"Oh, yeah? I've already gone through seven, Adam, so don't give me that bull."

Adam chuckled again. "You're good, Jesse. There are actually nine."

"I'm betting on twelve. Why so much?"

Again the crooked smile. "Because there are some parts of my life that you and the rest of Mutant X don't need to know about."

"Beg to differ, Adam." Jesse wasn't giving up. "You've got someone shooting at you. That makes it something that we need to know."

"But—"

"Be reasonable, Adam. If it were any of us, you'd be all over us to 'fess up. So, 'fess up, man."

Adam started to refuse, then sighed. The lines settled a bit more deeply onto his face. "Right," he gave in. "You have a point, Jesse." He sighed again. "It's not something I'm particularly proud of."

"We've all done things we wish we hadn't, Adam. You taught us that. You also taught us to own up to our mistakes and then try our best to fix them."

"This one couldn't be fixed." Adam sighed again, huddling in to himself. It hurt to watch. "You've accessed the public file on Carlos Del Castillo. How'd you figure out that it was him?"

Jesse ignored the question. "Right. Mutant, age thirty-five, feral with avian characteristics. Crossed with the DNA of the peregrine falcon, giving him extraordinary vision and hearing. It also gave him an exceptionally light bone mass, and he engineered his own set of wings. Your files said that he could fly up to a quarter of a mile, and could glide two to three times as far if he had a tall enough start. What happened? Why did he go into killing?"

The corners of Adam's mouth turned down. "A bad set of circumstances. Eckhart was coming into his own just around then, taking over, and he needed money to finance certain pet projects of his. Carlos was a natural for killing. Along with the other falcon characteristics that Carlos received, he also inherited the feral killer instinct. You know; the one that Shalimar is always working to contain. She'll protect her pack, but outsiders are lucky that she doesn't rip them to shreds if they look at one of us cross-eyed."

Jesse had seen some of Shalimar's less-controlled episodes and had to agree. "So this Carlos liked to kill?"

Shoulders slumped. "I'd hate to characterize it that badly. Carlos was not a evil man. But there was—and still is—a certain thrill to bringing down your quarry. It's not the killing itself but rather the exhilaration of besting your prey. Carlos as a teen-ager always had his share of pride and ego, but after saving his life, well… Let's just say that Carlos had to work harder than most to keep his mutation in check."

"And then Eckhart came along," Jesse prompted.

"Yes. Mason Eckhart." Adam paused to collect his thoughts. "Eckhart needed money to finance several of his projects, projects that he ultimately used to take over Genomex and promote his goal of controlling all mutants. He saw in Carlos Del Castillo the answer to his problems. He loaned Carlos to the intelligence agencies as a sniper, for a rather large fee. Carlos became the perfect killing machine: he could snipe targets from an incredible distance and then escape via a route that no normal human could follow."

"And Carlos?"

"At first, Carlos hated it. He still had enough self respect to despise what he was doing."

"Later?"

"Later," and Adam's voice turned bitter, "he learned that some of his victims were not especially pleasant people. That the world was better off without them."

Jesse nodded slowly. What Adam had said made sense. All except one thing. "But why does he hate you, Adam?"

It wasn't really a smile. "Because I dated his sister."

_There was that certain thrill, that weak in the knees feeling, every time Ana Del Castillo looked at him. Even now, years later, he could still feel her silky black hair between his fingers, taste her crimson lips on his, inhale the perfume that only she possessed. It was the way she fit into his arms, how she nestled against his chest as though she belonged there. She had only to beckon, and he would have gratefully approached her on his knees, begging for the favor of a single kiss._

_It wasn't love at first sight. That was fleeting, and shallow. No, this went deeper, deeper than mere physical attraction, thought there was always that. Ana Del Castillo kept up with him, with every comment that he made, every idea that he had. She didn't know genetics, but she understood people in a way that Adam Kane knew he could never match. Adam simply didn't have that innate quality to comprehend people the way she did. It wasn't telepathy, or telempathy, but simply a character trait. And Adam loved her for it._


	2. Second Short Circuit

"One last key, one more." Jesse pounded furiously away at the keyboard, the three other mutants clustered behind and breathing down his neck in anticipation. "Almost got it—there!" He sat back in satisfaction as a picture scrolled up from the bottom, followed by a spate of documentation. He and the rest scanned the information, hunched over the screen.

The picture showed a dark haired girl with big brown eyes. _A man could melt in those eyes_, Brennan thought to himself. _Adam had good taste_. He read further: Ana Del Castillo, like her brother Carlos, was a mutant. But Ana's mutant ability was chromatic, the ability to control light. Jesse activated the video clip, and it showed a tiny pint-sized woman, sparks flying from her eyes, hands glowing with excited photons. A swift move—it made Emma think of Brennan—and a blast of light shattered a concrete cylinder put there for the experiment. Shards of dust and rock splattered. The lens to the camera cracked, and the scene went black: a casualty of experimentation.

Shalimar crossed her arms and whistled. "That's some mutant. Wonder where she is now? In Eckhart's pods? Working for her brother, maybe? I'd like to think that we would have heard something about someone that potent. Is she hiding out somewhere?"

"Uh-oh."

"Uh-oh? Why don't I like the sound of that, Jess?"

Jesse pointed at the bottom of the screen. "Died five years ago. Exact date unknown, exact cause unknown. Suspected to be related to her mutation. Apparently there was a slow but inevitable degradation of the liver due to the build up of toxins related to chromaticity. No autopsy was ever done. The body was charred to a crisp, but talking to people around her confirmed the symptoms of liver disease." He frowned. "That's odd."

"What's odd, Jess?" Shalimar rested her hand on his shoulder.

"The liver degradation. Apparently no attempt was ever made to reverse it." Jesse leaned back on the stool to better make eye contact with the others. "This particular disease is not that hard to cure. I've seen Adam do it more than once. Remember that Billy Joe Bob guy that we got into the Underground last year?"

"The one with the microwave powers." Brennan nodded. "He was the perfect guy to have over for left-over pizza."

"I remember him," Shalimar said. "If he offered to 'lasso that little doggie' one more time, I was going to give him to Genomex myself."

"That's the one. Adam shot him up with the Potion du Jour, and he's currently as happy as one of his little doggies somewhere on a ranch in Arizona. I hear he's a bit hit on the trail when it comes to the mess tent. But the point is, guys, that this mutation side effect is not particularly lethal, as long as treated properly." Jesse fixed them with a questioning gaze. "So why was Ana not treated properly? Especially since Adam confessed to going out with her?"

"Had to have something to do with Carlos," was Brennan's opinion. "I mean, look at it. Sparks fly," and he snapped his fingers to demonstrate, "and—yow!"

Brennan had only intended for a tiny arc between forefinger and thumb. What he got was substantially more.

The arc balled out into a giant globe of electricity, blasting the other three mutants on its way to demolishing the newly refurbished computer. The monitor exploded. Glass from the screen shattered, scattering shrapnel at them. Jesse instantly massed to protect the others.

They picked themselves up slowly, moving around the shards, trying to avoid being cut by the shattered glass. Wires hissed and spit as the circuits shorted out. The monitor looked like someone had kicked it in with a heavy metal-toed work boot. Emma righted a stool, brushing it off.

Brennan looked at the mess in dismay. "Guys, I _so_ did not mean for this to happen! Are you all right?"

Shalimar glowered at him. "I'm going to be picking shards of glass out of my hair for a week, Brennan. Whatever possessed you to do that?"

"I didn't!" Brennan protested. "It just came out like that. It was supposed to be just enough to power the EverReady Bunny."

"Well, this Bunny was a Killer Rabbit," Jesse grumbled. "Look at the computer. You not only fried it, you scrambled and diced it into oblivion." He tossed a disgusted look at his team mate. "New monitor, new box—you even melted the keyboard, Brennan! What's with you?"

"I don't know, man." Brennan almost rubbed his fingers together to examine them, and thought better of it. Worry seeped into deep brown eyes. "Guys, I really don't know what's going on. It seems like I'm building up a charge all the time, and it just comes out at the wrong times! I can't stop it!"

"Maybe you're mutating again." Emma voiced what they all were thinking. "We ought to talk to Adam."

"No." Shalimar was definite. "Not yet. Not for another few days. Adam isn't well, and you know that if he finds out about this, he'll be straight into his lab and working on a cure."

Jesse agreed. "And he won't take a break until he has it. Or until he collapses in exhaustion." He glanced unhappily at the shattered plastic and wiring that littered the floor. Already the metallic pieces were aligning themselves in a north-south relationship to Brennan. Jesse swallowed hard—just how powerful was Brennan now? "I'll sweep this up. You girls ride herd on Adam. Don't let him near here or the lab until I have a chance to clean this mess away and do some of the preliminary research in the lab on ole Sparky here."

"And me?" Brennan's voice was uncharacteristically low.

Jesse favored him with a look half amused and half worried. "Find some way to burn off some excess juice, bro. Go find a thunder storm somewhere and show it how lightning is done. Maybe you won't be so noticeable."

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The office was sterile. There were no wood products to soften the look, no warm leather seats; only cold infection-free metal that was impervious to the bleach that frequently applied to the surfaces to ensure the lack of bacteria.

There was a desk chair for the office's owner to sit in, but he rarely allowed himself the opportunity. No, there was too much to be done to waste the time seated. There were underlings to oversee, laboratory experiments to review, budgets to approve or disapprove. More often those budgets were disapproved. He had idiots working for him, idiots who couldn't be trusted to carry out the simplest of tasks without close supervision.

There were a few that he allowed a more free rein. Most had proved themselves through completion of simple tasks. And, as now, he would let some ingratiating fool believe that they had talked him into some pet project or other. He always put a certain amount into his capital budget to finance a few go-getters in the forlorn hope that one or more might be successful in their endeavors. It kept the others trying at the mundane jobs and if the go-getter failed? Well, that too would keep the others in line when they saw the consequences of failure. As certain of the military branches of government were fond of saying: failure was not an option.

And he was quite certain that the object of his gaze was well aware of that. She stood in front of him, taller than he now that he was half-sitting against the front of the gun-metal gray desk, trying nervously not to fidget.

"Ms. Manse," he said finally. "Do you have something to say to me?"

The woman in front of him, neatly attired in a business suit so starched that it could have walked by itself, swallowed hard and opened her mouth to reply. He cut her off.

"I do not wish to hear excuses, complaints, whines, or even explanations," he snapped. "I wish to hear results. Do I make myself clear, Ms. Manse?"

Ms. Manse swallowed again. "Perfectly, Mr. Eckhart."

"You have already failed me once. Do you wish to submit a new project completion date?"

"Yes, sir. I—"

"In writing, Ms. Manse, in writing. And this time include a little more detail as to how you propose to accomplish it. _I_ would like to know your plan even if you don't."

"Yes, sir."

Mason Eckhart turned to look into the room where the pods lay, each holding a carefully shorn and sleeping mutant. Not one could harm the human race. A fitting place for those who would alter humanity.

A cough came from behind him. He didn't turn around.

"Are you still here, Ms. Manse? I am waiting for my report. Have it on my desk in the morning. You are dismissed."

"Yes, sir." She fled.

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Jesse heard the argument from far down the hall. The voices grew louder and louder, tempers rising, one low and male and thoroughly annoyed and one female trying to stay calm and placating. Jesse was in the lab, working on a computer that Brennan hadn't zapped to hell and back, wondering if he could possibly finish running the program he had cobbled together before Emma lost the battle altogether and Adam came charging into the lab.

"It's been two days, Emma. I promised the doctor two days, and it's up. I've got work to do."

"It has not been two days, Adam. It's not even five o'clock in the afternoon, and that does not qualify as two days."

"Close enough," Adam grumbled.

Jesse glanced worriedly at the computer screen. The clock on the side of the window estimated another four minutes to completion. One glance at the computer program and Adam would know exactly what Jesse had been doing all day in Adam's absence and would insist on taking over. Which Jesse wouldn't have minded—the problem was in Adam's field—but they all had strict instructions to make the man rest. _Here goes nothing…_ He hurried to block the door to the lab. "Adam! How are you feeling?"

"Very well, thank you, and ready to get back to work," Adam replied with a dangerous glint in his eye to match the note in his voice. Emma hovered nervously behind their mentor with an _I-couldn't-stop-him_ shrug of her shoulders. "What are you doing in my lab?"

"Ah, ah." Jesse waggled an admonitory finger at him. _Kilmartin to the rescue, milady. _"You heard the doctor. Two days, Adam. It's only been one and a half. Someone has to protect you from yourself. Tomorrow will come soon enough."

"No, it won't," Adam said in no uncertain terms. "Out of my way."

Grinning, Jesse massed hard as a rock. Adam bumped into him.

"Sorry, Adam. Doctor's orders. No lab time for you until tomorrow. _And_ we'll be keeping an eye on you to make sure that you don't over exert yourself. I think one hour in the morning, and another in the afternoon should be enough, don't you? Especially if you take a nap in between."

Adam's reply was non-verbal, unprintable, but eloquent.

"So glad to hear you agree," Jesse smirked.

But Adam wasn't finished. "And when did you finish medical school, to be ordering me around?" he challenged. "I've been practicing for over twenty years—"

"And right now you have a fool for a patient," Emma put in from behind. "You've scolded us plenty of times for pushing ourselves beyond what our bodies can take. Tables have been turned, Adam. It's time to take your own medicine. You need rest."

But Adam had seen the torn down computer bits on the workbench. Jesse cringed; the working computer had finished crunching the program—he'd bought himself enough time for that—but he'd forgotten the remnants of the Brennan-melted machine that he was trying to salvage parts from. Adam pushed by and into the lab, heedless of Emma's wordless protest.

"What's this?"

Jesse hunched his shoulder. "We, ah, had a little accident with one of the computers. I'm trying to put it back together—"

"I can see that. What happened?" There was no amusement in Adam's voice.

"My fault." Brennan came up behind the Emma, and took the blame—though not in the way it happened. He continued easily. "I was horsing around. I tripped, I crashed, and we are now out one computer. I'm sorry, Adam. I've already told Jesse that I'd help with the repairs."

Emma held her breath, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Brennan lied as well as anyone she knew, and not giving him away with body language was tough. She could feel the nervousness emanating from Jesse, and hoped that she herself wasn't doing the same. Adam couldn't sense the psychic resonance as she could, but the man had an uncanny instinct for seeing past any pretense. Brennan leaned against the doorframe, surveying the others inside the lab, giving Adam a frank and open look that managed to convey that the elemental was thoroughly ashamed of himself for being so careless around expensive equipment. Emma was impressed. Had she not been there when Brennan's 'accident' happened, she would have believed him.

"Liar."

Emma didn't need her powers to tell that Adam was annoyed. It radiated from the man, beginning from the time that his body had betrayed him almost two days ago through the enforced and resented recuperation to the present. Annoyed? No. Seriously pissed. And Brennan was the perfect candidate to take out his anger upon.

"If you're going to lie to me, Brennan, at least do it with a modicum of cleverness." Adam snapped, pointing at the computer parts. If he had been an elemental himself, sparks would have flown from that fingertip. "You may be hot-headed, but you are not clumsy. And I have yet to see the plastic housing on a keyboard melted from being tripped over." He glared at them all, not leaving anyone out. "What's going on? How did this computer get over-heated to the point of melting the plastic? What are you keeping from me? Where's Shalimar?"

"We're not keeping—" Jesse started to say, but Emma interrupted him with the truth.

"Adam, we didn't want to worry you. You've been sick. You should be in bed even now."

Adam folded his arms, regarding first one, then the other, and finally ending up on Brennan. "Well?"

Brennan heaved a sigh. There was no use in trying to keep anything from Adam. He always knew.

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Shalimar wasn't surprised to find that the scent pheromones led her to the top of the building. Ferals always harked back to their genetic roots, preferring the environments that their animal counterparts did. Shalimar herself was happiest stalking prey through a forest, silent as a cat, placing one careful paw in front of the other.

Carlos Del Castillo was an avian feral, from the peregrine falcon persuasion. Therefore the man preferred to nest somewhere high where he could survey the land. So Shalimar dutifully trotted up ten flights of stairs to the penthouse, pleased at the exercise because she'd had to give up her usual work-out this morning to care for Adam, forcing the man to stay in bed, carrying a breakfast tray into him and putting it on top of his lap so that he couldn't get up without spilling everything.

Casting a swift glance around to make that no one was watching, Shalimar put her ear to the door. She could hear the sounds of a shower far back in the apartment, the wavering of the water indicating that the man inside was engrossed in the hot water. A small smile played across her lips: the prey was distracted. Shalimar quietly picked the lock to the front door and eased herself inside.

The apartment wasn't large, but it was expensive. Del Castillo believed in feathering his nest nicely. The furniture was well-made and of high quality, nestled around a wood-stove that was there more for show than for heat. A small grand piano sat in the corner, the beginnings of a dust film settling on it, showing that Carlos kept the instrument as decoration only, and that the maid was due any day. The acoustic guitar leaning against the piano bench looked more used, and Shalimar guessed that it was the man's musical instrument of choice. The pictures on the wall also spoke of money; Jesse had taught her some of the hallmarks to look for, and Shalimar could tell that these pieces had been collected at some exclusive art show. She idly wondered if Del Castillo had bought them or if he'd stolen them.

No matter. Shalimar was there to persuade Del Castillo to give up his death threat against Adam. Or kill him, if sweet reason didn't work.

She advanced on the bathroom. Del Castillo was singing, a pleasant tenor, something in Italian that sounded vaguely operatic. Steam seeped out from behind the bathroom door. Shalimar halted. Opening that door would allow hot steam to escape from the small room and alert her prey that he was not alone. Shalimar would have only a split second to subdue him.

No time like the present. Shalimar readied herself, balancing from one ball of her foot to the other, cat-fashion. She flung open the door and sprang inside.

Someone snagged her around the neck from behind the door, wrenching her off of her feet. Astonishment hit worse than the blow, but Shalimar recovered instantly, pushing her feet against the slippery bathroom wall tile to ram her attacker back against the door. The hold on her neck loosened. Shalimar slipped away.

There was no room to fight for either of them. They took the battle to the living quarters. Carlos flung Shalimar against the wood stove. She landed on her feet and launched herself at the feral across the piano.

They were well-matched in size and weight, Carlos with his ultra-light bone structure. It was a battle of black and white, Shalimar blonde and blue-eyed and Carlos dark-haired with smoldering black orbs.

"My nest!" he hissed at her.

"My pack!" Shalimar snarled back. "Why? Your sister?"

That sobered Del Castillo. A nasty little smirk crawled across his lips. "Don't be stupid," he replied. "Ana died several years ago, too foolish to go after the serum she needed to live. This is strictly business."

But, here inside his nest with four walls and a ceiling, the avian had given up his feral advantage. Shalimar was accustomed to using the six surfaces equally well, Carlos preferred the open sky for his battles. His superior sight was of no use for in-fighting. With a screech of anger he flung himself out through the window, shattering the glass with his passing. The last view Shalimar had of him was a dark-haired man in a bathrobe gliding away, dancing in the air. It wasn't quite flying, but as an escape route it was effective.

Shalimar hissed in frustration.

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The scan finished playing over the elemental's torso, and Brennan casually folded his arms behind his head, the action not quite hiding his nervousness. The bio-bed that he was currently lying upon was narrow and just barely accommodated his bulk. There were boxy machines dangling from the ceiling, some that Brennan was well-acquainted with and others that he had yet to experience—and dreaded the thought. "Well?"

Adam turned away from the reports emanating from the computer screens. "The good news: this is a rather minor acceleration of your mutant DNA. Your increased control over electricity has caused certain of your body cells along the nervous system to align like a magnet, with north and south poles. This alignment in turn has increased the voltage that you can call on, resulting in an increased output. Translation: all the electrical work-outs you've been doing have increased your electrical muscle." Adam eased himself back into a chair, lines drawing down his face. But his eyes were alight with energy, eager to explore more of this problem before him, and that need to think and solve overruled any mere considerations of physical health. This was the sort of recuperation that Adam craved.

And his answer reassured the other members of Mutant X who had crowded around the computer to listen in. Shalimar had not yet returned from her jaunt, and only Emma knew where the feral had gone to, what her purpose was in sallying forth from Sanctuary. Adam had guessed, the others wondered, but only Emma knew for certain.

At Adam's words all three of the mutants relaxed in relief. Every one of them had faced similar threats to their lives and had only squeaked through as well as they had due to good luck and staunch research by the man sitting next to them.

"That's good news." Brennan meant it. "Leaking excess electricity everywhere I go is getting kind of embarrassing. This is not the kind of turn on that I want to give every girl I meet." He rubbed his fingers together to demonstrate. Already small crackles of power were gathering.

"I've alway knwon that you were a shock to everyone around," Jesse teased. "This just makes it official."

Adam grinned. "Fortunately for you, Brennan, I have a solution; literally, a chelating solution that I can inject into your bloodstream. It will take a little time to prepare, but it should do the trick."

Brennan swung his feet off of the bio-bed. "Then I can go? Until you've got the antidote?"

"Yes." Adam winced. Emma looked up in alarm, but Adam continued to speak as though nothing was wrong. "In fact, that's a good idea. Go some place where you can shoot off a few thousand watts or so without disturbing anyone. That'll work off the excess energy that you're building up and give you practice in controlling what you have. You haven't finished mutating, Brennan. There will come a day when this will happen and we won't be able to reverse it. This is an increase in your power levels—" he broke off with a gasp. He closed his eyes, clenching his lips in pain.

"Adam?" More sparks flew from Brennan's fingers unheeding.

Color drained from the older man's face and he clutched at his arm. "Chest.." he managed to choke out.

"It's his heart!" Emma exclaimed. "Brennan!"

Both Brennan and Emma grabbed at the stricken man, pulling him bonelessly from the chair to wrestle him onto the bio-bed that Brennan had just vacated. Jesse fired up the computer-imaging scanner; it was designed to measure mutant anatomy but would work just fine on a mere human.

"It's an arrhythmia," Jesse rapidly diagnosed. "His heart is beating erratically—it's too slow!" Then he stared at the tableau: Adam unconscious on the bio-bed, Emma beside him.

And sparks flying from Brennan, striking both Adam and Emma. Even as Jesse watched, the tiny electrical arcs flew through the air, arrowing in onto the tender flesh of both Adam and Emma. Another moment more, and Emma too felt their sting. Her face went pale, and she clutched at the side of the bio-bed to keep from falling over. She cried out in distress.

Brennan was terrified, and confused. "Wha—?"

Jesse came to a fast conclusion. "Brennan, get away from them now. Back up!"

"Huh?"

"Do it!" Jesse yelled. Leaping forward, he massed himself between Brennan and the other two. Tiny streaks of lightning flung themselves at him but couldn't assault his diamond hard surface.

Brennan staggered backward, still not certain what was going on but trusting Jesse. Almost immediately the sparks died down. With no possible terminal end point to complete the electrical circuit, they vanished. Emma almost immediately felt better; she sighed in relief. But her own brush with death took its toll: she closed her eyes and sank to the floor, Jesse jumping in just in time to keep her from slamming her head on the hard tile. Brennan started forward, only to be halted by Jesse's frantic gesture.

"Stay back," the molecular commanded, holding up his hand to keep the elemental away.

"Jess?"

"I don't know how, but being close to you is causing Adam's heart to malfunction and now Emma's as well." Jesse picked up the unconscious telempath and deposited her gently on the second bio-bed, arranging the scanner to swiftly look over her vital signs. Jesse looked over the readings. Relief spread over his even features, and he glanced back up at Brennan. "Emma will be okay. She needs rest."

"And Adam?"

"I don't know." Jesse peered at the older man's scan. "He's unconscious, but his heart seems all right now. It's beating normally. His vital signs are low from the episode but recovering." He looked back at Brennan fearfully. "His heart almost stopped, Brennan. We almost lost him!"

Brennan couldn't believe what was happening. He stared at the other two, both senseless on separate bio-beds. Emma's color was returning, but Adam still looked frighteningly pale, beads of sweat dotting his brow. "I did that? I couldn't have, Jess!"

"We'll figure it out, Brennan." Jesse let his fingers dance swiftly over the keyboard, inputting bio data into the files for later evaluation. "Just stay away from them for a bit. Keep your distance. Just until I figure out how to reverse what's going on. Or even _what's_ going on."

"What about Emma?" Brennan was having a hard time comprehending.

"Same thing there. She must be susceptible, just as Adam is."

"You?"

Jesse shook his head, too busy to meet Brennan's panicked gaze. He rolled across the floor on the movable stool to input data into a second computer, telling it to correlate its findings with the first. "Doesn't seem like it. Massing seemed to deflect the worst of it. I felt a couple of little pin pricks, but that was all. I feel fine."

"Right."

Now Jesse did spare a sympathetic look for his teammate. "Don't worry, Brennan. I'll solve this, and if I can't then Adam will be up and around and champing at the bit to do the same thing. This must have been why he went down at the lecture hall, and he was recovering from that just fine until this happened. We'll pull him through, Brennan. But right now he and Emma need a little bit of space from you, literally. Make yourself useful, bro: go check on Shalimar. See if she's had any luck with that Carlos Del Castillo character."

"You're trying to get rid of me."

"Yeah, Bren, I am." Jesse was getting involved in the readings the computer spit out. "It's not good for you to be here with Adam and Emma, and I want to find out why. Adam said that he had a solution to the problem, so I need to do some research and find out what he meant. And one of us should touch base with Shalimar, in case she's running into some trouble. You or me, buddy, and the comm. link. You got a better option for divvying up the chores?" The question was rhetorical. Brennan fled.


	3. Third Short Circuit

Jesse wearily directed his footsteps to the lounge, flopping into the nearest chair and letting his head loll back. He closed his eyes, wishing that he didn't have so many questions, that he had more answers to demands that the others would aim his way. The other two watched him in silence, waiting and hoping for the words that would imply _I can fix this_. It had been six hours, six hours of staring at the computer screen, comparing and discarding hundreds of possible solutions. Nothing seemed to match up with Brennan's condition. A chelating solution. What had Adam meant? _Which_ chelating solution?

Shalimar took hold of her 'little brother's' shoulders, rubbing and trying to work the knots out, muscles tense from many hours of non-stop computer work—and tension. Jesse groaned, frustration warring with the sheer relief of the ache.

"Well?" Brennan was trying not to be belligerent. Fear made him harsh; fear for the others, and for himself. He had only just found a home for himself; Brennan Mulwray, a man always on the run. This was now his family. Would he have to give them up to save them?

"He's stable right now," Jesse replied, not taking offense. The other two knew who he meant. "He's sleeping, and his heart rate is regular. His color is better."

"Emma?"

"Curled up next to Adam," Jesse replied, hastily adding, "in a chair, of course. As long as she's resting, I'm satisfied. Whatever it was—" and Jesse carefully avoided blaming Brennan for the disaster—"she got a lighter dose. She's tired out from it, but she'll be all right."

"She should be in bed," was Shalimar's opinion.

Jesse shrugged. "As long as she's resting," he repeated. "It would have been worse to drag her away from Adam. I've got monitors and alarms on them both, so neither one can lift a finger without my knowing about it. Don't go blaming yourself, Brennan," he added, knowing what the other man was thinking. "This is not your fault."

Brennan had huddled himself at the far end of the room, a ball of misery. Normally stretched out, lean and lanky and in control of any environment, this time he sat hunched on one end of the lounger, arms wrapped around long legs, trying to melt into the fabric of the furniture. "Who should we blame? Who else goes snap, crackle, pop?" He snapped his fingers to emphasize his words. An over-large arc cascaded upward, sending a shower of sparks into the air. Whatever was going on with the elemental, it was getting worse.

"You didn't ask for this to happen," Shalimar replied tartly. "What we need to do now is to figure out how to fix it."

"Right. Of course, it would be easier if I didn't nearly kill off the one man who could cure me."

Jesse ignored the elemental's bitter half-growl, half-wail. "Adam said that there was a cure, a solution to what's going on with you. I'll need to wait until I can move Adam out of the bio-bed and into his own room before I scan you again. That should give me more data to work with. In the meantime, why don't you blow off a little steam somewhere?" He rubbed the back of his neck. "You're making my hair stand on end, Sparky." He changed the subject before Brennan could bolt. "And what about Carlos, Shal? Find him?"

"Oh, yeah."

"That sounds good. You two have a conversation before you tore him to shreds?"

"Not as much as I would have liked," Shalimar admitted, "on either front. Being a feral, he was as agile as I was. Being an avian feral, naturally he took to the air."

"But he did talk before high-tailing it out of there?" Brennan sat up, hoping for a chance to go somewhere and wreak some serious damage. It was what his mood needed. "You pulled some of his tail feathers?"

"Sorry, no. But he did seem surprised that we thought it was about his sister. 'Strictly business' was the term he used."

"Business?" Jesse repeated, confusion registering on his even features. The others could still see him trying to wrestle with the bio-chemical equations in his head, and not making the transition to other more mundane topics. "How is killing someone business?"

Brennan scowled. "Adam and Emma are not the only ones who need rest," he muttered darkly. He glanced at the watch on his wrist, and frowned; it had stopped working. But the one on the far wall hadn't, and it showed it to be nearly midnight. "Go to bed, Jesse. Get some sleep. You'll be able to find the answer to this in the morning."

Shalimar nodded in agreement. Her 'little brother' looked worn out and just shy of frantic. "Plus, by then Adam will be awake if not exactly chipper. He'll be able to tell you where to look for the solution. You can get started on it then."

Jesse sighed. "I guess you're right, guys. I'm not thinking straight. I could be looking at the answer right now and never know it." He sighed again, tried to hoist himself to his feet, and failed.

Brennan automatically extended a hand to his teammate, and Jesse reached out to take it, not thinking about what he was doing. A giant flash of electricity arced across the intervening space. Jesse yelped.

"Man, I'm sorry," Brennan exclaimed, pulling his hand back, afraid that the little sparks that were now dancing around his fingertips would fire off again. He stepped backward.

"It's okay, man. You didn't mean it." Jesse was now wide awake, and on his feet. He shook his head, then his hand. "Better than coffee for waking a guy up," he quipped. "I needed that."

But Brennan saw the scorch mark on the man's palm.

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Compared to the hunched over figure huddled in front of the computer, Shalimar looked a vision of loveliness. Her golden locks were freshly showered into ringlets and the pullover top she wore covered only the essentials, leaving the rest of her free to move and stretch unencumbered. Yet that was only half the attraction in observing her, for Shalimar Fox was poetry in motion. She made something as simple as walking down the hall an elegant exercise in dance.

She ambled into the computer lab, snaking a companionable arm around Jesse's shoulders. "Look what the cat dragged back outside because it wasn't fresh enough," she greeted the man in annoyance. "Jess, did you get any rest at all last night? Did you _sleep_?"

"Enough." Jesse didn't move from the stool, still peering at the computer screen, deciphering the verbiage spinning past. "I think I'm getting closer to the answer."

"Why am I not convinced?"

"Perhaps because he's only saying that to keep your hopes up." Emma walked in to join them, a tray in her hands. The aroma of freshly-brewed coffee wafted toward them. "Jesse's no closer to a solution than last night. And no, he didn't get any sleep. I could sense his thoughtsduring thenight, every time I turned over."

"Emma," Shalimar greeted her fellow mutant. "You're up. How are you feeling?"

"A little shaky, but fine," Emma admitted, setting the tray down on the nearby counter top. She shuddered. "It was a close call. If you hadn't gotten Brennan away from us, both Adam and I wouldn't be here now."

Shalimar handed a mug to Jesse who inhaled it gratefully, ignoring the scalding of his tongue. Shalimar sipped at another. "We were lucky."

"You've been reading my mind, all night long?" Jesse accused. The first jolt of caffeine was hitting his system, and helping him to wake up. Already he looked brighter. "I thought you didn't read minds without permission. And yes, I am so closer to a solution."

"I don't, and you're not. You were broadcasting, Jesse, loud and clear, and all through the night I sensed frustration from you, just like I am now. I was feeling for Adam, and your thoughts intruded. Speaking of whom, what are you doing up?" Emma turned around to greet their mentor, not entirely pleased to see him walking around, hands tucked into his robe.

Adam smiled broadly at them, trying to appear the picture of health and vitality. He didn't quite pull it off. "I got tired of staying in bed. I can rest just fine right here," he added, glaring at Emma, daring her to contradict him. "In fact, I'm fine right now. Where's Brennan? I need to run some tests on him."

"You are _so_ not fine," Shalimar chided him, taking one arm firmly in hers and allowing Emma to grasp the other. Neither one was fooled by his attempt at a pretended recuperative miracle. "Adam, you nearly died."

"Hmm. I remember a certain feral who, after being wiped out by an elemental who shall go unnamed, tried to insist on getting up that evening."

"Yes, but you said no."

"Whereupon you got up anyways and fell flat on your face. You laid there on the floor until I came by and found you and picked you up."

"Which is why," Shalimar told him sternly, "that you too should be in bed. You're bigger than I am, and I'll have more trouble picking you up." She and Emma escorted the man to the lounger, guiding him away from the computer console where he tried to steer his feet. And if Adam's knees sat him down a little faster than he had anticipated, no one mentioned it.

But Adam wasn't done yet. "At least tell me what you've found out, Jesse."

Jesse was more than happy to oblige. "You steered me onto the electro-magnetic solutions, although I haven't been able to isolate the causative agent," he started. "I've been doing computer simulations to try—"

"Did you try the manganese-chromium combination?"

"No, but—"

"What about the ferrous sulfate in a zinc oxide base solution?"

"Adam—"

"At least tell me that you explored the hemato-ferrous link."

"Adam!" Jesse finally broke in. "Adam, I haven't even been able to scan Brennan a second time." He indicated the bio-bed that sat beyond the lab window into the clinic area. Several parts were stripped down and lay on the floor, looking for a permanent home. The soft cushioning looked distinctly charred. "Every time I got Brennan near anything containing iron, he started sparking. Even I couldn't get too close to him." Jesse held up the palm of his hand which still held the outline of a fading red second degree burn. "Not his fault, but not something I'd care to experience at a more intense level."

"Which is why we use computer simulations." Adam tried to contain his impatience. Jesse wasn't stupid—not of them were—but he didn't have Adam's years of training as a researcher or his background in medicine. "In fact, putting him in a room with explosives would be suicide. One spark, and the whole place would go up in a fire ball, taking Brennan with it. Plug in the hemato-ferrous equation into the computer, put in ratios of one to ten, and see what the simulation gives us. Pull Brennan's file specs and cross-match the antigens." He turned to Shalimar, mindful of both girls' unvoiced intent to keep the older man sitting down, resenting it but aware that annoyance was futile. "Go get Brennan. I should be able to talk Jesse through to an antidote within thirty minutes. He should be a very happy camper to hear that."

"Uh, Adam?"

"What, Jesse? Doesn't the hemato-ferrous solution work? We can try—"

"It's not that," Jesse interrupted, aware that his next words were not going to please Adam. "Brennan's not here."

"What?" Adam was appalled. "He shouldn't be out of Sanctuary right now. Not in his condition. Think of the damage he could be doing to himself."

"Think of the damage he could be doing to Sanctuary," Jesse pointed out in a reasonable tone. "Adam, he fried a computer, he shorted out the bio-bed, and he nearly took down one of the generators trying to relieve a little of the head he'd built up. He went to his room, and he now is out one hideously expensive audio system. The only thing that wasn't charred was a single tweeter hiding behind the woofer."

Adam groaned. "This has gone further than I'd thought. We have to get to Brennan right away." He came to a decision. "Jesse, run the simulation. As soon as it clears, you and I will create the serum to cure Brennan. Shalimar, Emma, you two track down Brennan and get him back here. Try not to get too close to him. We'll put him in the hydroponics garden where there aren't any iron products to stimulate his nervous system. Jesse, where did you send him?"

Jesse was already tapping in the program to the computer. "Nowhere in particular. I told him to go someplace where there wasn't any electronics or even metal. And to come back when he'd powered down." He pointed to a small lump of gold on the table beside him and shrugged unhappily. "Tracking him isn't going to be easy. That is all that's left of Brennan's comm. ring." He grimaced. "Slagged."

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"Ms. Manse."

At seven AM in the morning, dark with autumn's refusal to start the day in a timely fashion, there were no happy inhabitants of the room.

One of the more unhappy campers was Ms. Manse. Summoned to the office with unseemly haste, she was held securely by the arms by two burly men. Which was a good thing, because at the moment she could hardly stand. Her hair fell into her eyes, her clothes—hastily donned—were disheveled, and there hadn't been an opportunity for eye-liner, let alone the rest of her usual morning ablutions. Being dumped out of bed, tossed around a few times, and then dragged into a long black sedan to roar away into the night tended to do that to one. The two burly men were equally unhappy at the hour but for them, being trained within an inch of their lives, admitting their unhappiness was not an option.

Mason Eckhart was under no such constraints. He was unhappy, he was displeased, and he expected to make that abundantly clear to his underling.

"Ms. Manse," he repeated, every letter echoing crisply in the air. He waved a slender sheaf of papers in his hand. "What is this?"

Carla Manse recognized it instantly, which was an impressive feat since she could barely see through one eye that was almost swollen shut. The shiner that was developing was equally as impressive. "My…my progress report, sir."

"Yes, you did turn it in as I requested. And this time, unfortunately for you, you included details. Again as I requested." Eckhart allowed an angry frown to settle on his lips. "You should have included those details from the first, Ms. Manse. I would have thrown you and your plan out of my office, and then we would not be having this conversation."

Ms. Manse swallowed hard.

"I do not waste assets, Ms. Manse, even when they are not yet under my control. Your plan to capture the members of Mutant X is unacceptable. How do you expect to remedy the situation?"

She licked her lips, hoping that her voice would cooperate. "Sir, as long as Mutant X has such a strong leader they will act in a cohesive manner. Capturing them is unrealistic while he is in the picture—"

"Murdering Adam Kane is unacceptable!" Eckhart thundered. "That man is the premier researcher in the field of genetics! He is the key to solving some of the most perplexing problems that Genomex faces! I will not have him lost to us!"

"But, sir, he's not working for Genomex—"

"His research, whether done under our control or not, is vital to this organization! Do I make myself clear, Ms. Manse?"

"Yes, sir." The words were muffled by puffy lips swollen by cuts in three places.

"Let me make myself even clearer. You will cancel the contract with Mr. Del Castillo immediately. Because if he succeeds in killing Adam Kane, the next contract he accepts from you should be for your own demise. And rest assured, Ms. Manse, that Mr. Del Castillo will be far more merciful than I."


	4. Fourth Short Circuit

"I know," Del Castillo murmured. "The next words out of your mouth, if you felt up to speaking, would be: you can't get away with this."

And if his feet hadn't been tied together, Brennan Mulwray would have been kicking himself.

Brennan had taken Jesse's advice and gotten the hell out of Dodge, AKA Sanctuary. Jesse had been right; all the electronics and metal were causing Brennan's mutation to accelerate, sparks flying, and destroying valuable equipment, some of it Brennan's and most of it expensive. There was a sweet little DVD player in his room that now… He sighed. The only safe place to let off some steam was somewhere where there wasn't electrical devices or people with sensitive nervous systems that would suffer pseudo-heart attacks. For there was no doubt now that both Adam and Emma had nearly been killed simply by being next to Brennan at the wrong time. Let Brennan mutate any further and Shalimar and Jesse would be next.

An abandoned salt mine seemed to be the right place. It was a great cavernous bowl of a place, open to the blue sky abovewith at least half a dozen pockets in the side walls where the salt crystals had been scooped out with bulldozers. Most of the salt had been taken but enough remained to cause light to twinkle among the crystals. Brennan opted to keep his shades on. At least those were of high quality plastic and impervious to the miniature lightning bolts jumping from his fingers.

The tower where the supervisory types had stayed was rusting after years of abandonment. Brennan latched onto it as the perfect temporary solution. Some two dozen massive jolts later the tower was dented and leaning with the rust flaked off in several places leaving shiny metal exposed. The tower had been painted a drab green but the paint had left with the rust.

Brennan felt much better.

Or, he did until something heavy and blunt connected with the back of his head. He didn't remember falling to the ground, but the waking up period following reminded him of just how bad he had felt before coming here and releasing a generator's worth of energy. Only now his hands were thoroughly trussed up behind his back, and his ankles hobbled together. The only good part was that the sparks leaking from his fingertips had ceased, although given that Del Castillo was the enemy Brennan wouldn't have minded if he'd given the avian feral a pseudo-heart attack of his own. All in all the situation had, Brennan realized, deteriorated.

Del Castillo didn't need words to determine a substantial portion of what was going through the elemental's mind. The look of recognition was enough. He nodded consolingly. "Yes, my friend, you are to be the bait that will draw Adam Kane here."

Brennan tried to stay nonchalant. He cleared his throat. "Out of luck, pal. He doesn't know I'm here."

Even that didn't phase Del Castillo. "For someone as bright as Dr. Kane, that shouldn't be a problem. I'm sure he'll be looking for you shortly, and when Dr. Kane researches a problem, it gets solved. I know that from past experience. When did he expect you back?"

Sincerity oozed from every syllable emitted from the elemental's throat. "He didn't," Brennan lied. "I've got the week off. You're still out of luck."

Del Castillo shook his head. "No, my friend: you are. You'd best hope that he comes looking for you before the week is up. Dehydration and exposure to the elements is an unpleasant way to die." He finished driving a stout iron stake into the ground, fastening another rope to Brennan's wrists and pinning him fast. The avian feral held up a knotted rag. "Any last words?" he asked before forcing it into Brennan's mouth.

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Adam never tired of watching Shalimar at work. Shifting into her feral state, she seemed to become something more than human, a cat-like grace at her disposal to rival the most elegant of dancers. He could have sworn that she even sniffed the air, testing for the scent that her pack member had passed by this way not too long ago. One foot settled in front of the other, following the trail that Brennan had unwittingly left.

Without a vehicle, Brennan could not have gone far. His out of control mutation wouldn't allow him to use anything mechanical, not without shorting out the timing mechanism among other automotive delights, so hoofing it down the road turned out to be the elemental's best option. Shalimar's steps lengthened in proportion to the man's speed: Brennan had broken into a gentle jog after a mere quarter of a mile, working out the hijinks that were sprouting from his fingers. Shalimar didn't need to point out the crisped vegetation on the side of the road where he had passed.

But long legs had eaten up the distance. It had been a good four plus hours that Brennan had gone out in search of a place where he could release lightning bolts unobserved, and marathons had been run in less time. Adam and Emma had adamantly insisted on joining the search, so Jesse and Shalimar just as obstinately insisted on driving the pair in relative comfort in a Range Rover. Shalimar trotted on ahead, searching out the trail, while Jesse toyed with the transmission, seeing how far he could push the clutch in high gear at low speed before the engine would stall. Adam muttered under his breath at the abuse of a good engine, but Jesse just grinned. And rode the clutch.

Shalimar halted, and Jesse stalled the Rover just behind her, rolling to a stop. "I meant to do that," was his unrepentant grin to a growling Adam.

Shalimar sniffed at the air. "He's nearby. I smell ozone."

"That would be Brennan," Adam confirmed. "He must have released a great deal of excess energy. Where is he?"

But Shalimar wouldn't let them progress any further. "There's something wrong here."

"What?" Jesse's humor vanished.

Shalimar shook her head, ringlets flying. "I'm not sure. I'm just getting an uneasy feeling."

"Shalimar's right." Emma came to the feral's rescue. "I feel it, too. I can feel tension in the air. I can't pinpoint it, but there's a general feeling of _wrongness_ here. And Brennan is involved." She frowned. "I wish my powers were working better."

"Don't push," Adam commanded sharply. "Emma, you too were subjected to Brennan's out of control electrical fields. You need to take it easy."

"Good advice," Jesse said. "I trust you'll take it yourself and wait here?" Without waiting for an answer, he hopped out of the car, handing the keys over to Adam.

Adam wasn't to be deterred so easily, following them out of the car and handing the keys behind him back to Emma. "I've got the serum for Brennan," he rationalized, holding up the container with a syringe inside. "He needs it as soon as possible. We've got to find him."

Jesse cocked his head. "And how do you think you're going to get it to him?"

"What?"

"How do you think you're going to administer the serum?" Jesse asked reasonably. "I mean, look what happened the last time you got close to ole Sparky. Adam, you don't need to do that to your heart again."

"Brennan needs this serum," Adam tried to say, but Jesse interrupted him.

"And all of us need you alive and kicking. Adam, I'm not kidding. You're _so_ not going close to Brennan while he's in this state."

"Then just how do you expect to get it into him?" Adam folded his arms across his chest. "Going to shoot him across the distance with a dart gun? We seem to have forgotten to bring one along, Jesse."

"Simple. Me."

"Hah. You're just as much at risk as the rest of us, Jesse. I won't let you take that chance."

"Not." Jesse waggled his finger at his mentor. "Me. Old Brick Wall himself in the not so dent-able flesh. Brennan can't hurt me when I'm massed."

"You don't know that for certain," Adam challenged.

"That may be true," Jesse admitted, "but we do know that he can do plenty of damage to you. And Emma. And probably Shalimar, for that matter. And he didn't hurt me the last time I got close to him _en masse_. Got a better option?"

Adam didn't, but that didn't mean the scientist was happy about the situation. He gave in with poor grace. "All right. But I want you and Shalimar to scope out the area, look around thoroughly before moving in. I don't trust this situation."

"Happy to oblige," Jesse grinned.

His was the only mirthful expression. Adam settled himself back into the Rover along with an unhappy Emma who was still trying to persuade her over-taxed mind to do a better job of scanning the immediate area. She moved into the front seat and crossed her legs, closing her eyes to concentrate.

Shalimar and Jesse trotted off down the road, Shalimar in the lead. Tall trees lined both sides with the underbrush going back as far as they could see. There was minimal bird life in the branches, and Shalimar chose to believe that it was due to Brennan's recent electrical outbursts. That was the most logical explanation.

But she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched, although she couldn't see anyone around. The pair came up around the last bend to be presented with a large pit at least a mile across: an abandoned salt mine.

"Brennan was here," Shalimar murmured to Jesse, pointing out the crazily leaning tower. "Where is he now?"

"Good question." The molecular surveyed the terrain, not liking it. The area was huge and open, with left behind pockets of salt crystals glittering hungrily in the sunlight. There were at least six or seven outcroppings too large to be bulldozed over where anyone could be hiding, not to mention the dark pockets carved into the sides of the bowls, areas where miners had tunneled after the salt, stopping only when the thick veins petered out. In addition to the leaning towers, there were two other towers where someone could relax, out of the sun. The place appeared eerily empty. But—"There."

"I see him."

There was a dark lump, half hidden behind one of the salt outcroppings. The figure wasn't moving, was lying immobile on the ground, with no one else around. By the size and length of the man, by the black leather jacket that encased his upper body, it could be no other than Brennan.

The obvious answer was that the elemental, having discharged the excess energy that his mutation had created, had collapsed to the ground unconscious, helpless to resist the ravages of his mutating DNA. There was no evidence to the contrary, and everything to say that that was the case: no sign of another living soul, no footprints in the dusty soil beside the unconscious man. Anyone in the near vicinity of those elemental lightning bolts had run the risk of being toasted. But Jesse Kilmartin was well aware of the mutant abilities of the woman beside him. If Shalimar said that they were being watched, then Jesse was prepared to believe her.

He watched the feral test the air, eyes searching for signs of life. A line settled grimly across her lips, and she shook her head.

"He's there, but I don't know where."

"Then Brennan is bait."

Shalimar nodded. "He'll expect one or more of us to go after him, draw Adam out into the open where he can pick him off."

"Surprise for him." There was no amusement in Jesse's voice. He activated his comm. link. "Adam? We've found him."

"Good. Don't approach him; let me examine the situation first—"

"No go," Jesse interrupted. "We've got a situation. Brennan's down, but Shalimar says that Del Castillo is using him as bait. Stay where you are. We're going to pull Brennan out. Then we can deal with Del Castillo."

They could both hear the frustration coming back over the link. "All right. But Jesse, you have to get that serum into him as quickly as possible. All those energy flows are burning him out. There's no time to waste."

Jesse switched his comm. link and turned to Shalimar. "You heard the man. Let's go rescue Brennan."

But Shalimar held him back, biting her lip. "No, wait a minute, Jesse. Let's think this through. Del Castillo is trying to kill Adam, not one of us. Which means that he's arranged this little set-up to suit himself, to draw Adam out into the open."

"And to keep us off guard until he has a chance to get at Adam." Jesse nodded. "Well, Shal, if he wants Adam, let's give him Adam. It's time for a little payback."

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Moments later a man could be seen picking his way down the crystal-laden slopes toward the bowl of the salt mine. Dark hair could be seen from the distance, an open coat flapping in the breeze as the man scuttled from rock to boulder, trying to stay out of line of sight of any potential sniper.

He crouched behind a massive outcropping. He shielded his eyes; the salt wedged into the crevice of the stone glittered balefully in the sunlight. "Getting closer," he reported, bringing the comm. ring up to his lips to speak quietly. "Brennan's about twenty yards away. He's not moving, but he is breathing. That's a good sign, I hope."

"Be careful," Shalimar hissed. "Don't take chances."

"I'm staying massed as long as I can," Jesse returned somewhat testily. "This isn't easy, you know." For the man making his way toward Brennan was indeed the molecular, posing as Adam. He would move a few yards, scanning the large bowl for signs of the sniper, and mass as he took advantage of the meager cover afforded by the large boulders. "You just be ready to pounce as soon as Del Castillo shoots and gives his location away." There was a pause, and a chuckle that was a magnificent denial of nervousness. "And just remember that if he turns out to be hiding on that far bluff instead of in the tower, you owe me a drink at Bartolo's downtown."

"Don't go getting yourself killed," Shalimar advised, just as nervous. "'Cause I'm winning this bet, and it'll be tough to collect if you're dead." She scanned the area, searching for signs of where Del Castillo had hidden himself. Right now Shalimar was less interested in the bet than taking down the avian feral and putting an end to this little romp. The stakes were a bit too high for her tastes.

"Get ready." Jesse was almost in position. "There's about ten yards of open ground to cross. If Birdman over there is going to shoot, that's where it'll happen. And Brennan doesn't look good, Shal. Adam was right to say hurry. When I say go, I'm going to move to Brennan and that's when Del Castillo will make his move. I don't intend to make it easy for him, and I don't intend to get hit even if I am massed. You all set?"

"Any time you are." Shalimar held her breath.

"Go." Exhaling, Jesse massed, and started forward. His movements were ponderous, slower than his usual quick-footed actions, the density weighing him down but not stopping him entirely.

A shot rang out, then two more in quick succession, bouncing off his solid form.

"Got him!" Shalimar leaped for the tower that Brennan had nearly toppled over just a few hours earlier. "I win! Go, Jesse!"

One more bound, and she clawed at the open wall to the tower twenty feet above the ground. Another twist, and she was inside the rickety structure. Del Castillo whipped around, gun in hand.

There was no time for words, only action. Del Castillo swung the sniper's special at her, using the gun as a club. Shalimar ducked and went for the avian feral's throat, fingers outstretched. Del Castillo got the first blow in, but Shalimar retaliated by sweeping the avian's feet out from under him. He lashed his own foot at her and caught her just above the waist. Shalimar flew back, crashing against the corner. The tower shook.

Shalimar leaped back onto her feet. Time for fun was over. This man was trying to kill Adam, and putting the rest of her pack in the path of danger. She leaped.

Del Castillo ducked but Shalimar was expecting the move. She turned, cat-quick in the air, raking him along the ribs. Del Castillo screeched. Again he swung the gun, and this time he connected. Shalimar was knocked into the wall.

The tower not only shook but it groaned. It tilted. One support leg gave under the pressure.

Del Castillo didn't wait. Snatching at his sniper's special, he leaped out of the open air tower and glided to the bluff that Jesse had pointed out just five minutes earlier, too far for Shalimar to reach in a single jump. His coat billowed out in the air, and she could almost see the flexible structure he'd built into the fabric to support such maneuvers. Flight wasn't something that anyone else could do and it gave him an unfair advantage. Shalimar hissed in frustration.

Jesse wasn't paying attention. Seeing Del Castillo's preoccupation with Shalimar, he unmassed and hustled over to Brennan, noting with dismay how tightly the ropes were bound around the man's wrists. But at his touch, sparks began to jump out from Brennan's fingertips. Brennan groaned—he had no control over what was happening. The man's eyes flew open, and he grunted again through the gag, trying to communicate.

"Hang in there, buddy," Jesse reassured him, concentrating on trying to untie the ropes. No use; they were too tight. Time for better measures. Exhaling, Jesse phased to insubstantial, taking the ropes with him and pulling them not off but through Brennan's tortured flesh. A moment later solid ropes, still tied, dropped to the dusty salt-laden dirt. The gag followed.

Brennan spat, trying to get the taste out of his mouth and some moisture back in. He rubbed his wrists, holding the spots where the rope had chafed the skin away. Another spark of electricity buried itself in the dirt. "Jesse—"

"Not now, man. Let's get you out of here and someplace where I can give you Adam's serum without collecting a bullet that has Adam's name on it." Jesse moved on to pull the ropes from around Brennan's ankles, wincing at the flesh rubbed raw. Specks of blood oozed forth.

"Jesse," Brennan tried again. A larger bolt escaped his control.

Jesse yelped. "Hey!"

"Sorry," Brennan muttered. He tried to inch away, to keep the unwanted sparks from darting over at his teammate.

"Not your fault. Guess we're not going anywhere fast." With a quick glance over his shoulder—Shalimar was pursuing Del Castillo up the bluff. The avian feral had his rifle tossed over his shoulders, gliding to a high spot—Jesse pulled the syringe out of its container, working the plunger to expel any air. "You need this now. Ow!" he yelped again as another miniature bolt of lightning stabbed at him. "Okay, time for sterner measures."

Jesse massed, the action slowing him down but making him impervious to Brennan's mutation. He advanced on Brennan, taking the mutant's arm to expose the vein to the syringe.

The comm. ring crackled. Emma's terrified voice rang out. "Jesse, Shalimar, help! It's Genomex!"

It took both mutants by surprise. Jesse jerked up, automatically looking around. Brennan sat up, but the shock set his mutation off again. A massive bolt of ball lightning erupted from his chest, blasting Jesse off his feet and spinning into the air. The heavy density was no match for the sheer power of the elemental: Jesse was blown away to knock heavily against one of the salt crystal outcroppings. He dropped to the ground, stunned, massing released in favor of hanging onto a single thread of consciousness.

Not for long. Jesse jumped back to his feet, preparing to charge back to Brennan who by now was quivering on the ground, helpless in a post-electrocution seizure. More sparks erupted from the elemental. Jesse started forward, syringe in hand. No time for massing. No time for anything except getting the serum into Brennan's bloodstream. Jesse could handle the shocks for long enough to do that.

A sharp report split the air: gunshot! Jesse halted, shocked, staring down at his own torso, watching as a blossom of red flowered there. He dropped to suddenly weak knees, and from there plunged to the salty ground.


	5. Fifth Short Circuit

"I don't want to hurt you," Carla Manse repeated, pretending that she wasn't terrified, holding the revolver in both hands. There were six dark-suited men backing her up, but these were _mutants!_ They were _dangerous!_ "Just stay calm, and you'll stay alive." _Almost as dangerous as Mason Eckhart_.

"What do you want?" Adam demanded. He eased himself out of the Rover. If this were going to be a fight, he and Emma couldn't afford to be trapped inside the vehicle. He didn't trust this woman. She was too scared, and scared people didn't react sensibly. He needed to keep control of the situation, keep her from losing her head. There were too many lives at risk, including those of Mutant X.

"I'm trying to keep you alive," was the woman's surprising answer. Adam blinked. "Mr. Eckhart wants you alive, and I intend to honor that wish. So you just come with me." She allowed her gaze to flicker over Emma. "You, too, _mutant_." She all but spat the word, as a curse.

"We're not going anywhere without an explanation," Adam told her calmly. "I don't care what Mason Eckhart wants. I don't work for Genomex."

"Not now you don't." The chuckle sounded thin. "But, trust me, Dr. Kane, this is for your own good. If you don't come with me and my team,"—indicating the six tall men behind her, similarly armed with weapons—"you'll die. Del Castillo never misses."

"He already has." Emma came up beside Adam.

But Manse was through talking. "Put the sub-dermal governor on her," she directed one of her henchmen. "Step away from the woman," she directed Adam, "or I'll shoot."

"Ah, you're going to shoot me to save me. You'll have to explain the logic of that to me some day."

"I'll shoot her." Manse's weapon shifted focus.

"I really wouldn't make her mad." Adam tried to pull their attention back to him. Could Emma save herself? The empath had been subjected to Brennan's uncontrolled mutant blasts just as he had been, and if Emma felt even half as bad as Adam himself then he wondered why she was still on her feet. Adam himself was still standing only through sheer stubbornness. A fist fight against six of Genomex's finest was out of the question and if Emma were capable of throwing a psychic whammy then she would have done it by now. "What is your connection to Carlos Del Castillo?"

"A mistake," she ground out. One of the dark-suited men spun Emma around to roughly shoot a sub-dermal governor into her neck. Emma cried out, dropping to her knees. The man picked her up with one brawny arm, letting her half-dangle with the gun in the other hand pointed at Emma's head. Carla waved her gun wildly, gesturing to Adam to move out. "A mistake that I am rectifying. Now, come with me to safety."

"Not without the rest of my team," Adam started to say when another henchman simply stepped forward and cracked him across the head. Adam dropped to the ground.

"Adam!" Emma screamed. She jerked her hand to her face, the hand with the comm. ring. "Jesse, Shalimar, help! It's Genomex!"

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Shalimar was focused on one thing, and one thing only: Carlos Del Castillo. But the man was also a feral, with the same ferocity and single-mindedness as Shalimar Fox. His target down, his contract complete—or so he thought—his next response was to fight this foe with similar powers to his own. No longer was he in his nest with walls all around to hamper his movement. Now there was air on five sides of him, only a salt crystal-laden floor beneath them, and he had the high ground on the bluff. The avian was in his element.

Shalimar was a feline feral, well-accustomed to bird antics. That feral in front of her had threatened her pack. And that was unacceptable.

Which is why neither one of them realized that the men of Genomex had come up behind them until two tranquilizer darts sank home.

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"This one's almost dead," the dark-suited man reported to Carla Manse. Jesse lay on the ground, wheezing his last, unable to muster any response to his enemy. Breathing took all the energy he had. Blood seeped redly from his midsection to puddle among the salt crystals on the ground.

Not that Brennan was in any better condition. The men quickly left him alone after the first attempt to approach. The elemental too was writhing on the ground, bolts of energy seeping from his fingertips to splatter against the salt crystals. Brennan had tried to aim some of those sparks but with no effect. And the electricity was starting to consume him. Brennan didn't how much longer he could hold onto his own consciousness.

"Leave them," Carla ordered. "Mr. Eckhart can decided what to do with the bodies later. Let's get these others back to Genomex. Haven't you finished with that governor yet?" she asked irritably. A feral yelp indicated that he had. Shalimar rubbed at her neck, glaring at the man who'd inserted the device and silently promising retribution at the first possible moment. First a tranquilizer dart, now a sub-dermal governor. If the man was smart, he'd quietly disappear at the first chance he got before Shalimar got loose.

Carla watched as another man carefully tied Adam's hands behind him. Adam might not be a mutant, but Carla Manse wasn't taking any chances. She needed this prize safe and sound to bring to Mr. Eckhart. Any damage to this man, she surmised, and she might well end up on the ground next to the two mutants gasping their last and wouldn't that be an interesting _ménage a trois_ for the local police to puzzle out? "Move out," she ordered. "The cars are more than a mile away, and I'd like to get there sometime this week." She pushed the snout of her gun into the small of Adam's back, shoving him forward.

Adam stumbled forward, catching himself. He cast a backward glance at the two they were leaving behind and then closed his eyes in horror. It was going to be a very different world. Brennan and Jesse dead, and there was no doubt in his mind that Mason Eckhart would put Shalimar and Emma into pods as soon as humanly possible. And Del Castillo too, if only the avian feral knew it. Or perhaps he did. The avian feral face was still and unreadable, another sub-dermal governor preventing the assassin from escaping. And Adam? Adam Kane wondered what Mason Eckhart would do to pull the genetic information out of Adam's brain. Whatever it was, Adam was sure that it wouldn't be pleasant. Mason Eckhart had long ago lost any shred of humanity. Adam glanced around. There wasn't even a handy cliff to toss himself off of to ruin those plans. Manse shoved him again to move him forward with the others.

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It was getting hard to breathe. No, it was already hard to breathe, but it was getting harder and harder with each passing moment. Giving up seemed a very enticing option to Jesse Kilmartin.

But his teammate and friend was still on the ground, writhing with the pain of the electrical voltage torturing his nerves. More sparks flew from his fingers, striking the salt crystals to bounce harmlessly off into the air. The syringe lay a few short inches from Jesse's outstretched hand. Crystals crunched in the distance; the rest of the group was moving off.

Not the best scenario to be played out.

Jesse rolled over onto his side, unable to keep back the moan that forced itself out at the movement. But when he came back to himself, the syringe was in his hand. _Good_. Now for the hard part: getting to Brennan. His breath was getting shorter. Jesse suspected that he didn't have much time.

_All right, no dawdling, Kilmartin. You can do this._ He crept toward his teammate, syringe ready, pausing only once to mass to keep Brennan's uncontrollable short-circuits from killing him prematurely as Jesse crawled upon the ground. That he was a dead man himself Jesse didn't doubt for a moment. The red stain that he was leaving behind in among the salt crystals was pretty telling. But if he was lucky, very lucky, then he wouldn't take Brennan with him.

Another inch, another. The salt crystals on the ground packed themselves into the wound. It hurt like hell but Jesse refused to stop. Stopping meant stopping forever. Going on meant pain, and pain meant that he was still alive and alive meant that Brennan had a chance. Then Brennan's arm was in Jesse's face, the vein blue and pulsing in front of him. Jesse could barely focus to slide the needle into the skin. He heard a groan, and wondered if it belonged to him or to Brennan, then decided that it really didn't matter. He pushed the plunger home.

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_Fire_. Brennan was on fire. Every nerve was on fire, every square inch of his skin was being slowly flayed off of his body one electron at a time. It hurt to move, it hurt not to move. Brennan didn't know which was worse.

Someone moved part of him, and his arm responded with renewed efforts at torture. Brennan groaned, the sound forced out of him.

But then a coolness seeped from that arm, a serenity being brought to those flagellated nerves that promised relief—promised and delivered. The relief trickled down into his fingers, and then up through his shoulder and from there to the rest of him. Brennan sighed, the sound escaping just short of a whimper of relief.

It would have felt wonderful just to lie there and bask in the absence of pain but life was never that easy. It took three tries, but Brennan finally managed to roll over onto his hands and knees. Swaying there, he decided to chance opening his eyes.

That hurt almost as much as his nerves had. He remembered where he was, in the middle of an abandoned salt mine, with leftover crystals all around twinkling into the sun and bouncing every single one of those twinkles directly at his eyes. His memory was foggy, but he remembered stumbling here, he remembered releasing several gigawatts worth of energy and feeling a whole lot better.

But Brennan wasn't feeling better at the moment. Something must have happened between then and now, and slowly the memories crept back to him: Del Castillo taking him down like a rank amateur—that smarted even worse than anything else—and then watching as Jesse crept up to him, syringe in hand, pretending to be Adam…

Jesse! The fog in Brennan's mind cleared instantly as he saw the still figure close by. Terror drove away the rest of his lethargy. He scuttled to Jesse's side. "Jesse! Oh, man, you can't die on me! Jesse!"

A shuddering breath reassured him that the worst had not yet happened. Jesse spoke, not opening his eyes. "Welcome back." He coughed, a hand clutching at his torso. Brennan caught at him, easing the molecular back to the cold hard ground. Jesse coughed again. "Damn salt. Got into the wound. Hurts like hell, Brennan."

"I'll wash it out," Brennan promised. He looked around, wondering where the nearest supply of water was.

"No time." Jesse coughed again. A trickle of blood sprang to the corner of his mouth. "Genomex. They've got the others. You have to help them."

"I've got to get some help for you."

"I'll be fine," Jesse lied, trying not to wince. "They need you, Brennan. This was all a Genomex plot. Did you see her? One of Eckhart's lackeys, a woman, hired Del Castillo to kill Adam. She thought that it would drive the rest of us out into the open where she could get at us. Don't know what changed her mind, but now Genomex's goons are taking Adam, Shalimar, and Emma back to their facility. They've already put sub-dermal governors onto Shalimar and Emma. And Del Castillo."

Brennan looked grim. "I guess he's out-lived his usefulness." He stared down at Jesse, not liking the man's color. He shrugged out of his leather jacket, tucking it around Jesse. At least this way he couldn't see the blood leaking out of the man.

"Hurry," Jesse urged, correctly determining what the elemental was thinking. "Go get them. Get them away from Genomex before Eckhart gets hold of them."

"Jess…"

"Go," Jesse urged. "Please, Brennan."

Both recognized what neither one would admit to. Brennan set his jaw. "Stay here, man. I'll be back with Adam and the others. You make sure that you're still here. Hear me, Jesse?"

"I hear you." The smile was faint. "Go."

Brennan went.

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Del Castillo had favored high places from which to target his prey, and Brennan Mulwray heartily agreed. There was a certain satisfaction in looking down on the enemy, taking aim and firing. Brennan had positioned himself in a similar spot, able to look down on his prey, watching the group of Genomex goons, Mutant X, and one stray sniper advance along the forest floor.

Brennan could see three black sedans in the distance, lined up on the narrow dirt road looking remarkably out of place among the heavily wooded terrain. Whoever got to service those cars would undoubtedly have something to say when those cars returned full of underbrush in the suspension. And with the amount of scratching of the paint with the narrow paths, Mason Eckhart would be out the cost of three expensive coats of body armor. That in itself made Brennan feel better. _Gonna blow the budget on this one show, Eckhart?_

Brennan had hustled. He wasn't far behind the group. The crowd was going slow to accommodate the pace of the captives. One or the other contrived to fall at irregular intervals, blaming it on lack balance due to hands being tied behind each back. Even Del Castillo, eyes smoldering each time he had Carla Manse in his sight, put in his share of clumsiness, intuiting that the others had some plan in mind.

Brennan counted: six men with guns, one woman with a pistol. Two men led the way with Mutant X and Del Castillo trailing behind single file. The other four men and the woman brought up the rear, guns at half-mast. The guns weren't needed right now; Brennan had caught sight of the sub-dermal governors on the necks of the New Mutants. He'd better make this good. Let one of the Genomex goons get a moment to think, and a spray of bullets would put the body count beyond repair. He snapped his fingers, noting the high level of control of electrons with satisfaction: yup, ole Sparky was back to normal. And, boy, was he pissed!

Timing would be everything. Brennan waited, waited, watching as the group came closer. Fifty feet away, now forty. Brennan crouched on the slope above the trail, waiting. Thirty feet—breathe silently, don't let them hear. Need 'em close enough to take out at least two with one shot. More would be nice.

Shalimar heard his breath. Brennan could tell by the infinitesimal straightening of her head. She tossed her hair back over her shoulder, ringlets dancing. Del Castillo had caught it, too. Damn ferals and their super-human senses.

Twenty feet. Ten. Brennan summoned the lightning.

He stood up. "Hey!" he shouted.

It was almost worth it to see the look of utter astonishment on the woman's face. She had clearly thought that Brennan was a dead man. It was worth even more to watch the two men behind her get blasted by a lightning bolt and go flying into the trees. They didn't have the grace of Del Castillo in the air, but the sight was more than satisfactory.

Shalimar's powers may have been dampened and her hands were tied behind her back but anyone who considered her to be neutralized was harboring foolish hopes. One of the remaining men whirled around, gun coming up and ready. Shalimar kicked it out of his hands. Her next kick dislocated his jaw, and his consciousness with it. He went down into the bed of pine needles.

Del Castillo too had changed sides, and he too was a feral. And he too was more than a little miffed at this turn of events. He expressed his feelings in detail upon the other man leading the way. Had Shalimar had the hands free to do it, she would have given him the thumbs up.

Both Adam and Emma turned on the remaining pair. One ducked under Emma's long-legged roundhouse kick. Brennan summoned another electrical jolt and dropped the man where he stood. Adam demonstrated the art of _le savat_, and the final man took a well deserved nap.

Which left the woman. She nervously brandished her pistol, trying to cover all of them at once. "Get walking!" she tried to command. "I'll shoot! I'll shoot!"

"You can't get all of us," Adam pointed out reasonably. He moved in closer to her. The others spread out, encircling her so that she couldn't cover all of them. She shifted from one to the other, aiming the gun at first Shalimar, then Del Castillo, finally settling on the man she'd been told not to harm. "Mason Eckhart told you not to kill me, didn't he? What if your gun goes off, right in my face? Do you think Eckhart is going to listen to excuses?" He moved forward, into the gun's path, and gestured at her fallen companions. "This is what we did with hands tied behind our back. And sub-dermal governors on their necks. Do you really think that a silly little handgun is going to make a difference?"

She didn't. One little sob, and she ran. Moments later they heard the roar of a powerful car engine—needs a tune-up, Brennan sniffed—and they were alone in the woods.

Brennan wasted no time untying his teammates. But he halted at Del Castillo.

Adam shook his head. "I have a suspicion that the contract was cancelled. Right, Carlos?"

Del Castillo shrugged eloquently. "I have half my money. And I doubt very much that I will be permitted to acquire the other half. I think that I will simply move on. Mason Eckhart can look elsewhere for his hired help. I now have significant doubts about the stability of the company retirement plan, even if I don't live past fifty."

Adam rubbed his wrists. "Brennan, you arrived just in time. If we had gotten into those sedans, I don't think Eckhart would have ever let us go." He looked around. "Where's Jesse?"

Cold settled into Brennan's chest. "Not good, Adam."


	6. Short Circuit epilog

Beep.

Beep, beep.

Whir, hiss, and again: beep.

Somewhere there was a very large ow! going on inside him, but for some reason it just didn't register. Not much did register except the noises around him.

Okay, that meant that his eyes were still closed. Which was a good thing, because a significant part of the ow! was a headache the size of the state of Texas. Jesse had an uncomfortable feeling that as soon as his eyes were open the headache would become a realistic part of his world instead of this muffled faraway piece. Hm. Cancel the opening the eyes part of the process.

Little bits of memory teased the edges of his mind: Brennan's scared expression as he left the molecular behind in the salt mine, and Jesse's own belief that he would never see the elemental or, for that matter, any of Mutant X again on this side of Heaven. Then the remarkable sight of Brennan leading the group back at a dead run, Del Castillo among them—_hey! Isn't that the guy who shot me?_—and being dragged out of the salt mine between two brawny sets of shoulders, one tall and the other much shorter. In fact, Jesse remembered, the shorter set were just about the height of a certain avian feral…

The rest of his memories were thankfully blurred. He was clearly no longer in the salt mine, or even outdoors. All the noises around him had a significantly indoor sound to them, which suggested that the rest of Mutant X had dragged his limp carcass back to Sanctuary. Which also explained all the wires and tubes that were dangling off of him, creeping out from underneath meager covers, the mild adhesive patches itching in concert with all the painful spots.

Which meant that he wasn't dead yet, a fact that was only mildly comforting considering the various aches that swarmed over him. A hand rested onto his face and peeled back his eyelid, shining a bright light into the orb. Jesse yelped, or he thought he did. Nothing seemed to come out of his throat. Two hands, slightly different sizes, tightened on his in sympathy.

"He's coming around."

Even that didn't sound right. That was Adam's voice. And this was definitely reversed. Adam was the one whose heart had almost stopped. Shouldn't Adam be in bed with Jesse shining a light into his mentor's eyes?

All right, time to open the eyes. He couldn't put it off forever. Light poured in, but the scene refused to focus.

"Hey, sleepy head. I thought you were going to snore for the next century."

That was Brennan's voice. If he concentrated, he could almost make the man's features come clear, the dark hair, the dark eyes full of worry. No more sparks, thank goodness. Jesse had had enough of that to last for a lifetime. But something didn't look right. The dark face came closer. Jesse frowned; it wasn't Brennan. He thought he recognized the face. In fact, it almost looked like the picture of the man trying to kill Adam...

"I didn't want to leave without apologizing." Del Castillo's voice had just the slightest trace of an accent, warm and elegant. "Your ruse was excellent. I believed that you were Dr. Kane, unable to resist going after Mr. Mulwray once I was distracted by Ms. Fox's attentions. I was truly fooled. Not many people can say that, Mr. Kilmartin."

Jesse cleared his throat. "Lucky me." He coughed, not certain if he'd gotten the words out. Cool hands soothed him, stroking his hair back from his forehead. Another held a glass of water to his lips.

"That's enough water for now. Let's stick to ice chips," Adam warned. _Spoilsport_. "You're lucky to be alive, Jesse. An inch higher, and the bullet would've penetrated your abdominal aorta. You'd be dead, Brennan would be dead, and the girls and I would be trying to make nice with Mason Eckhart. How do you feel?"

"Like I've been shot." The water tasted good, even if his stomach did threaten to tie him up in knots. Emma eased Jesse back against the pillows, Shalimar tucking the cover in around him.

Adam moved on. "Carlos, clear something up for me. What happened to Ana? How did she die? Why didn't she come to me for help? I could have saved her."

"Ana? Dead? Not yet, Adam." The grin in the avian feral's voice sounded genuine.

"But… I thought…"

"My dear Dr. Kane." Del Castillo leaned back in the chair in the corner of the infirmary, crossing his legs. "You have the Underground for New Mutants, and you can still ask that particular question? Ana is living and well in another part of the world, raising several children quite happily, I assure you. She has made me an uncle several times over though none as yet appear to take after this side of the family. Although little Lupita may yet…" He trailed off, a reminiscence lighting his face.

"Oh." Adam tried not to sound miffed. Then—"She didn't want to go into the Underground?"

Del Castillo waggled a finger at the scientist. "Dr. Kane, you must admit, your parting with my sister was somewhat rancorous."

"She wasn't willing to—"

"She dumped you?" Emma broke in.

"You're kidding," Shalimar exclaimed. Brennan covered a grin. Even Jesse, eyes closed, allowed a small smirk to flee across his face.

Adam glared at Emma, letting some of the annoyance leak over to Shalimar. "Stop reading my mind!"

Emma held up her hand. "Not me, Adam. Honest."

"My sister," and Del Castillo's amusement was evident, "was not willing to play second fiddle to anything, including Dr. Kane's beloved research. After arriving late for a date for the fourth time—"

"It was only the third, and it was because the solution crystallized in the sink!"

Del Castillo ignored the interruption. "—my sister, who possessed an outstanding voice, let him—"

"—and the rest of the building!—"

"—let him know that such behavior was unacceptable in a suitor that aspired to her courtship, and that his attentions were no longer welcome."

Adam Kane sniffed, and tried to sound nonchalant. "Next time you see her, give her my regards."

Del Castillo regarded him with an expression caught halfway between rueful and amused. "I shall. And to my nephew who, coincidentally, is named Adam."


End file.
